The problem with rapidly growing budgets is that they enable laxity in financial controls. In just a few years, Bermuda’s budgets have doubled to over $1 billion annually, leaving many questioning whether we are getting value for the money.
The Royal Gazette reports that Bermuda’s Auditor General has released a special report that touches on exactly that subject:
- He reveals that the new courthouse project has paid out $6.5 million – more than 8% of its total budget – and climbing without supporting evidence. That does not prove fishy business, but certainly creates an environment where waste and unaccountability might thrive. He says the status of the money Government paid for a bond on the project is also not clear. He also claims political interference by the Minister. (Which reminds me, where does the Police investigation into those screwy checks stand?)
- He also found laxity in the Department of Tourism, saying that more than $1.8 million in overpayments were made to communications agency GlobalHue and its vendors. That’s nearly 5% of the Tourism budget. Even more alarmingly, the article states that “when Tourism’s director of Sales and Marketing began to investigate, he was given a massive $440,000 pay-off”. I think the public deserves to know much more about these transactions.
- And, it sounds like Government is still chasing that $13 million due from the bond providers (BIU-affiliate Union Asset Holdings Ltd) in the troubled Berkeley project.
The report is so hot that apparently all the hard copies that were available at Parliament were snapped up. So we’ll have to wait until Government posts it on the web. I’m sure they’ll get right on that.
No reports yet on whether the new report will lead to the Auditor General a) having his office suddenly moved by W&E, or b) getting arrested on flimsy charges, or c) getting pilloried in public by the politicians.
A million here, a million there and pretty soon you are talking real money … money that would surely come in handy in the coming year.
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